Conventionally, a one-box type vehicle represented by a “mini-van” and the like is equipped with two or three rows of seats in its interior. Some of the seats are equipped with a “reclining unit”, which adjusts the inclination angle of a seat back thereof. In such case, the reclining unit is ordinarily provided on a side face of the seat. However, when the “seat of the second or third row” is designed for three occupants, since the width of the seat has roughly the same dimension as the width of the interior space, a space between the side face of the seat and the inner wall of the vehicle is extremely narrow. Under such conditions, in the seat of the second or third row, when the reclining unit and a free hinge are attached to the both side faces of the seat, a hand of an occupant hardly reaches up to the reclining unit. Therefore, when unlocking the seat back, there may be a case where the occupant experiences a difficulty to operate the lever. Therefore, to facilitate the lever operation of the reclining unit, the operation lever of the reclining unit is preferably disposed at a position easy to operate for the occupant.
As a means as described above, for example, conventionally, an art disclosed in a patent document 1 is known. In the art disclosed in the patent document 1, a handle (10) is disposed in the upper face of the seat back, and the handle (10) and an operation arm (30, 33) for unlocking a reclining unit are connected to an operation lever (9). When the handle (10) is operated, the operation arm (30, 33) of the reclining unit can be operated. According to such art, by operating the handle (10) in the upper face of the seat back, the reclining unit can be operated. Therefore, the space in the vicinity of the seat side face is not required.
In a vehicle equipped with three row seats, generally, occupants get onto the third row seat from a rear side door. However, when occupants get onto/off from the third row seat, the second row seat positioned immediately before the third seat blocks a path for occupants to get into/off the vehicle. Therefore, the second row seat is added a “walk-in function” to permit the second row seat to be slid in the forward/backward direction.
As a “walk-in function” as described above, for example, an art disclosed in a patent document 2 is conventionally known. The art disclosed in the patent document 2 includes a hand switch, which is disposed at a position away from a seat cushion (13) like the vicinity of driver's seat, and a motor (53), which is disposed at a lower portion of the seat cushion (13). According to such art, when the hand switch is operated, the motor (53) provided in a lower portion of the seat cushion (13) is activated and a cam (53b) is rotated to draw a wire cable (53d), and a manual operation lever (18) is rotated to function the walk-in function; or, the seat back is returned to an ordinary position and the seat is moved forward/backward by a motor (57) and a warm gear pair through an electrical control. That is, a series of operations from activation of the walk-in function to the returning of the seat back can be carried out from a position away from the related seat.
Also, in a vehicle such as a mini-van, a variety of seat arranges are required in accordance with the occupants' application purpose and utilization. As typical examples, the following examples are given. That is, a cargo room space is enlarged by largely moving the second and third row seats in the forward and backward directions; or, the second and third row seats are brought closer to each other and the seat back of the second row or third row seats is inclined forward (forward inclination) to use the rear face of the second row seat as a table, or the like.
After the seatback is folded by being inclined forward (full inclination) to use the rear face thereof as a table or to utilize the rear side of the body as a cargo room as described above, to reset the seat to sit thereon again, the occupant have to carry out such works to open a door at the side of the body, to raise the seat back by hands, and the like. Such works require considerable time and energy and are extremely troublesome. Therefore, it is preferred that such a seat as described above is given with a “seat back raising device”, which is capable of causing the seatback to rise through a switch operation from a position away from the seat.
As a “seat back raising device”, for example, an art disclosed in a patent document 3 is conventionally known. In the art disclosed in the document, a reclining unit is disposed at one side of the seat back and a free hinge (3) is disposed at the opposite side thereof, a wire (16) is connected to the free hinge (3), and the wire (16) is wound by means of a device constructed of a sector gear (7), a speed reduction gear (6), an electrical driving unit (5) and a one-way clutch bearing (10), thereby the seat back is raised. According to the above art, a switch for activating the device is disposed in a position away therefrom like driver's seat, and by operating the switch therefrom, the seat back can be raised from a position away therefrom in the interior of the vehicle. And since only a free hinge and a unit have to be attached to a conventional seat, the assembly of them is simple and thus the above art is useful.
[Patent document 1] Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Application No. (Hei) 3-27743
[Patent document 2] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. (Hei) 5-16714
[Patent document 3] Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2001-239862